Rejoice! Law And Order: SVU Renewed For An 18th Season!

Breathe easy, Law and Order junkies, for SVUhas been renewed for an 18th season–which makes it the longest running scripted drama currently on TV. While the show has occasionally gone a little over the top —and the departures of Elliot Stabler and John Munch were difficult for all of us — I think we can all agree that we do not want to live in a bleak, tragic Law and Order-less world. I mean, think about that for a second. If SVU were canceled, we’d have nothing left. Except for reruns and a lot of shows we have to watch in the order they aired in order to figure out what’s going on, like jerks.

It’s also pretty awesome that a show that is essentially about advocating for rape victims has been on for 18 seasons, and that Mariska Hartigay has used the show and her resulting fame to advocate for the testing the rape kit backlog.

Dick Wolf’s other shows–Chicago Med, Chicago Fire, Chicago PD–have also been renewed, and another, Chicago Law, has been picked up. I feel no particular way about that. I tried to watch PD, but found it too difficult to tell the two gruff-voiced white dude leads apart.

What I’m actually hoping is that this leads to a new version of Law and Order Original Recipe, which I maintain was only canceled because it was unable to quickly find its footing after the tragic death of perfect human Jerry Orbach, and could definitely be revived again.